Opposition MPs deliberately promoted misinformation and disinformation

As the 13th Parliament gets earnestly going with the debate over Budget 2026, Ruminations is gravely disappointed that the Opposition MPs seemingly adopted the notion that their job is to misinform the public and to promote disinformation. Unfortunately, the Opposition MPs were determined to outdo each other in misinformation and disinformation.
The World Bank describes households with earnings of less than $800 per day per person as people living in severe poverty and with earnings of less than $1400 per day as moderate poverty. The IDB, using this definition, reported poverty rates in Guyana between 2016 and 2019 and for 2020 and 2021, periods when the Government was mostly in the control of the PNC-led APNU/AFC, and the President was President David Granger. The 2020-2021 period was when COVID-19 impacted the whole world. Part of that time, David Granger was Guyana’s President, and the Government was the PNC-led APNU/AFC. President Ali’s first two years in office were in the COVID-19 years.
Therefore, the IDB report of 58 per cent poverty, with 32 per cent severe poverty in Guyana, is an indictment of the Granger- and PNC-led APNU/AFC Government. If MPs will stand up in Parliament and highlight this finding, we should, at least, expect them to tell the Guyanese people that under President David Granger and under the PNC-led APNU/AFC, this was the reality in Guyana.
Instead, many of the Opposition MPs gleefully, directly and indirectly, blamed the President Irfaan Ali-led PPP Government for 58 per cent poverty. At no point did any of the Opposition MPs feel compelled to inform the Guyanese people that the IDB report referred mainly to a period when the PNC-led APNU/AFC was the Government. Can the Opposition seriously believe their story that 58 per cent of the households are earning less than $1400 or that 32 per cent of the households are earning less than $800 per day today?
To say that the Guyana of today, under President Irfaan Ali and the PPP Government, has 58 per cent poverty is misinforming the people. The fact is that the IDB Report was for a period when a PNC-led Government under David Granger sacked more than 7000 workers, impoverishing more than 60,000 people who depended on those sugar workers for their livelihood, for spending in the markets and the community shops, and for supporting the local tailors and seamstresses. It came at a time when bauxite workers were laid off and when more than 40,000 Guyanese citizens across the country lost their jobs.
The report came at a time when families were drowning under more than 200 new taxes, when education and health and water and electricity were subjected to VAT, when the Government increased agriculture land lease rates and drainage and irrigation payments by often more than 100 per cent, and when the more than 10,000 rice farmers were denied help because the Government told them they were the private sector. Compounding the problem, it came at a time when the PNC-led APNU/AFC Government took away the cash grant for children and the water and electricity subsidies for pensioners, and increased university fees by more than 50 per cent. Not one MP in the Opposition benches who kept repeating the misinformation told the people any of this.
The media has a responsibility to fact-check MPs. Most of the private sector media reported what the Opposition MPs said about 58 per cent poverty as fact. The Stabroek News, the Kaieteur News, various radio and TV newscasts and online media failed to inform the public that the poverty rates reported by the IDB, which Opposition MPs parroted, were for a period under the David Granger-led, PNC-led APNU/AFC Government.
How can a country with a 58 per cent poverty rate see bank loans to purchase motor vehicles more than triple between 2020 and 2025, standing today at $33.8B? Between 1970 and 1990, Guyana had the same licence plate series. This means it took more than 20 years for Guyana to import 10,000 vehicles. Under successive PPP Governments under Presidents Cheddi Jagan, Sam Hinds, Janet Jagan, Bharat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar, by 2015, a license plate series was completed in months, with two series in 2014, compared to one series in 20 years under a Burnham-led and Hoyte-led PNC Government. As of 2025, almost four series were completed in a year, more than 40,000 vehicles. Ordinary families are now owning their own cars, with their own homes. Which person making less than $800 or $1400 per day can afford a car or get a loan from the bank?
Outside of loans for motor vehicles, household credit increased by almost 100 per cent, from $33.5B to $66.5B, and real estate mortgages increased from $90.6B in 2020 to $185B in 2025. This shows the incredible increase in home and property ownership. Thousands of new businesses have been registered. Private sector loans have more than doubled since 2020, from $260B to $532B. The private sector has grown and is employing more people. Because of the local content laws, more Guyanese companies are benefiting from oil and gas and are generating almost a billion US dollars in local revenue that did not exist before 2020.
At the same time, between 2020 and 2025, Guyana’s Human Development Index (HDI) has dramatically changed. An HDI of 1.0 is the most developed, and the lowest developed is near zero. In 1990, when Guyana used to be among the lowest HDIs in the world, our HDI was 0.440. Today our HDI has improved to 0.78. Usually, countries with high poverty rates are below 0.5 HDI. The Opposition MPs, in spreading misinformation and promoting disinformation, insulted the intelligence of the Guyanese people.